Review Summary: glow off, oomfie
5th wave emo seems to have an overriding prerequisite for its online vanguard: no sleep. The output of both Sonhos Tomam Conta (Brazil; ethereal emogaze maelstrom) and Asian Glow (South Korea; midwestern roots sustaining canopy of lo-fi
tiiimbeeeeeer) has been tearing up the calendar ever since their appearance alongside Parannoul (South Korea; hikikomori-core) on the now-landmark split
Downfall of the Neon Youth (2021) - hardly a month seems to have passed without a fresh offering announced or released from one or the other. With Asian Glow's focus now significantly occupied with collaborative works, it was only a matter of time before we heard the two under one banner, and so unto us is delivered:
Dreamglow. The possibilities for this one were anyone's guess; both artists are among the more mercurial of their peers, though in wildly different ways. Sonhos Tomam Conta's heavily reverberated trappings have long cushioned a precipitous sense that her compositions could flip from crystalline to cathartic at any given moment, and while Asian Glow tends to display more consistency within individual tracks, the way he has expanded his palette from straightforward Microphones-esque lo-fi to sprawling folktronica epics renders each addition to his arsenal more unpredictable than the last. Two artists, large potential, one album, seven tracks, total emo, deeply online, shoegaze unleashed. Y'diggit?
The upshot is by far the most propulsive and volatile release from this collective thus far. Each collaborator enables the other's hitherto latent chaotic relish: Sonhos Tomam Conta coos and shrieks; Asian Glow croons and bellows; the former's coursing blackgaze and the latter's pummelling crescendos exerting a zealously reciprocated death grip on one another. It may surprise some that Asian Glow's vocals are by far his most superficially visible contribution, as Sonhos Tomam Conta covers all production and most instrumental duties;
Dreamglow is accordingly steeped in the swirling gale and shattered ice of her aesthetic and, violent and tactile though it be, its oneiric qualities are hard to overstate. Make no mistake, though: this is a co-write through and through. The first four tracks in particular pursue fraught ratchetings of tension with a knack for succinct standout moments (those vocals on "hangemall" phwoar baby) and bruising dynamic shifts that are quite unlike anything I've heard on a Sonhos Tomam Conta solo release. The results conjure a similar, though decidedly more ferocious, kind of abandon to last year's still-sensational
Weatherglow EP. As on that release, these tracks' (mhm) varying degrees of focus on songwriting niceties are backed by the kind of burgeoning zeal that renders such things obsolete. All well and good so far.
Things take a turn on the final two tracks, which together comprise almost half the total runtime. These veer into expansive territory and largely jettison the fission and tumult that dominate earlier songs - and with Sonhos Tomam Conta's glacial soundscapes sustaining the atmosphere over eerie chord progressions here, the collaborative flavour peters out somewhat. "synesthesic chromaticism" (bad dictionary moment) in particular smacks of Asian Glow guesting on a template Sonhos Tomam Conta song, while the closer "desencontros" builds so laboriously to its twin climaxes that their explosive value is somewhat lost in an all-pervading turgid haze. An unfortunate outcome for a bold pacing gambit to be sure, but this alone doesn't quite account for
Dreamglow's chief pitfall: the whole package, be it kinetic or comatose, lands as inadvertently transitory. Both its manic outbursts and oblique soundscapes stimulate immediate intrigue, but they are reticent to cling to any given form long enough to do more than hint at their full potential, each an outwardly fierce whirl of individually unthreatening jagged edges that leave little but unscratched itches in their wake. "amber mural" is a case study here, a push-pull of shoegaze sheen and throttling emo that tag one another in and out so with such frictionless shimmer that it is unlikely you will retain a significant impression of either individually. The track is gripping and then - gone. So it goes for its fellows; return if found!
